Social media gives Broward Sheriff Lamberti a boost

Sheriff media blitz boosts profile before elections

(L (Michael F McElroy, correspondent )

August 13, 2011|By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel

The sheriff gets up and says good morning to thousands of Facebook friends, and at night bids them farewell. He Tweets. He hosts a radio program. He shows up in grocery stores to give free coffee to shoppers. He appears with the stars of two TV shows featuring his deputies. He spends hours at minor weekend events and broadcasts them online.

Call it the "Green Machine.''

That's what some privately dub the taxpayer-funded, green-and-gold, $711 million Broward Sheriff's Office, and its ability to propel someone into the spotlight.

Sheriff Al Lamberti is a year away from his next appearance on the ballot. But the race is on, and his two Democratic opponents, Scott Israel and Louie Granteed, are busy trying to match the Republican sheriff's high profile. While they've opened campaign accounts to raise money to get their names out to voters, Lamberti hasn't.

"I'm too busy being sheriff,'' he said this week.

And his name is everywhere.

Facebook friends

Lamberti's "social'' life is on the climb, as he attempts to become "the most Social Sheriff in America.''

"Will you not invite all your friends to join my Fan Page?'' he wrote to his Facebook friends in late June. "Only 13,568 fans needed to be the "Most Social Sheriff in Florida.''

Lamberti said this week that he's "not competing for any titles.'' But his collection of Facebook "friends" is nearing the 5,000-person maximum on his personal page, and he has to move them over to the new page.

His Facebook friends shower him with compliments, like this one:

"You are a Pleasure and a Treasure. Should be called Al Sunshine.''

On Twitter, he has a smaller crowd. But his agency created its own version, CyberVisor, and sends out short alerts to a legion of 10,000. He's got a catalogue of videos on YouTube as well.

Airwaves, grocery aisles

The sheriff talks to listeners on Sundays on his "All Points Bulletin'' radio program.

He's in person, too. Lamberti arrived by helicopter to four National Night Out Against Crime events earlier this month. And he regularly appears at events with the stars of two BSO-featured TV shows, "Police Women of Broward" and a brand new program, "Unleashed: K-9 Broward County.''

On Saturday, Lamberti spent his morning at a BSO prescription drug collection and paper-shredding program in Pembroke Pines.

In recent months, he ramped up the publicity blitz, creating a new event, "Coffee with the Sheriff."

He and a cadre of BSO employees show up in a grocery store, give out free coffee and glad-hand with shoppers. It's broadcast live to Internet viewers on a new BSO website, bsolive.org.

"Once again the sheriff has an opportunity to talk to the community,'' Cmdr. Michael Calderin said to the camera in July, from the Publix in Pembroke Commons in Pembroke Pines. "And I'm going to be waiting for my coffee because my sheriff always gives me a good cup of coffee.''

Behind him, shoppers streamed past BSO mascots like McGruff the Crime Dog. The stars of the two TV programs were on hand, fingerprinting was offered for children and fire-rescue leaders were present.

Calderin, head of BSO's Crime Stoppers program, is a Lamberti fan who posted on Facebook before his 2008 election that "he is going to win, hands down!''

The proposed BSO budget shows more spending in the Department of External Affairs, where media relations lies. This year: $694,013. The new budget: $768,385.

Lamberti said that's mostly for higher health insurance costs for the seven employees.

"It's got nothing to do with this,'' he said.

The law

Lamberti said he's not the only politician getting publicity from his office.

"It's everything from the president on down,'' he said.

Indeed, taxpayer-funded "dog and pony shows'' aren't unusual for sitting politicians, political consultant Ron Gunzburger said, and Lamberti needs lots of "P.R." to associate himself with the office, and not his party label, he said.

Vehicles from the elections office bear the name of the elections supervisor, Dr. Brenda Snipes. So do sample ballots mailed to tens of thousands of voters.

Employee shirts in the Broward Property Appraiser's Office bear the name of that elected official, Lori Parrish.

The Florida Ethics Commission has looked at cases involving elected officials running for office, like a case in which a sheriff's candidate wore his uniform while campaigning. The Ethics Commission said that was OK.